A Printable Planner for Moms-Organize to Save Time and Money!

I used to waste a lot of time, and my mind was cluttered.  My house was often messy.  Often, I felt guilty when I did things I enjoyed or I just didn’t get to do the things I enjoyed.

Now, I generally use my time wisely, I don’t have so many random thoughts crowding my mind, and I get to do things I love to do.  Why, you ask?  I use a planner!

Over the years, I have purchased many different planners.  (Some were better than others!)  I have spent a good amount of money and tried many different types of planners.

But, this year I decided to do something different.  I bought a customizeable printable planner that I will never have to pay for again.  I bought a lifetime membership to Mom’s Household Planner!  The membership site is updated often with current calendars so I can just print out a new one each year!

The Mom’s Household Planner has MANY different options for the printable planner.  I was able to look through the different planning pages and calendars and chose the ones that I knew would help me the most.  Some of my favorite are the:

• Monthly Calendar Pages
• At a Glance Weekly Planner Pages.
• Routine Pages
• List Pages

The Calendar Pages Help Me to Keep a Sane Schedule

I use the Calendar Pages to help me see the overview for the month-I record appointments, birthdays and get together’s on the monthly calendar.  That helps me to know what is already planned for the month at a glance so I can be careful not to plan too many things too close together.

The At-a-Glance Weekly Planner Pages Help Me to Get Everything Done!

I use the At a Glance Weekly Planner Pages for my day to day planning.  I love the way the categories are set up!  I only found a few things I wanted to customize (the pages are editable!)

The Weekly Planner Pages are the place to list all the things that need to be done for each day.  It helps me so much to have a place to record my priorities for each day.  It helps me to focus and not feel like I am pulled in a thousand directions.

It also gives me a place to record various things as soon as they come to my mind, so I worry a lot less about forgetting something important.

There is a space at the top that says “AT A GLANCE”.  This space is to record the focus for the day.  This helps me so much to not feel overwhelmed!  I can know what the focus is and not try to do more than I need to.

There is a menu and meal prep space so that I can be more intentional about what we are going to eat each day.  I like that I can think about it ahead of time, and not have to stress right before mealtime!

There is a homeschooling space for me to record my must do’s for homeschooling for the day.  This helps me to stay on track with the priorities for that day.

Each day can be different for us.  Some days the girls do lots of independent work.  Some days, I do lots of teaching.  Some days I work on recordkeeping etc.

There is a must do list for the things that must be done on that specific day.  On the bottom of the page is a perpetual to do list for things that can be done whenever I find the time.

I love that these are separated.  That way I can plan on doing the must do’s, but if I happen to get something done on the perpetual to do list as well I feel very gratified.  🙂

I edited the planning page to say “This Week” right after the ‘Must Do List”.  I use this space to record things that I really want to do that week, but haven’t assigned to a certain day.

The Routine Pages Help Me to Not Feel Guilty

I love the routine pages!  I have to have goals for what time to do things.  If I don’t then I end up spending too much time on one thing and neglect what I need to do.  Or I just end up feeling rushed.

I don’t hit all my target times perfectly, but having it written down helps me to stay accountable.

I definitely want to make sure that my priorities are in order, and routine pages help so much.  It also means I can schedule in the stuff that I want to do and not feel guilty about it. 

If I know that I get from 8:00 to 9:00 to work on photography, than I don’t stress and worry that I really should be washing dishes.  🙂

The Lists Save Me So Much Time and Money!

There are many lists available including shopping lists, gift lists, and kids clothing lists.  Whenever I think of something that we need I record it right away.

I often add household items to my list as soon as I notice we are running low.  That way, I don’t have to make a run to the store for only an item or two.  This saves me time and gas money.

I also keep a running list of things that I order on the internet, and I wait to order until I have enough to get free shipping.  Because of this I rarely ever pay for shipping!

Putting the Planner Together

Here are the steps I took to put my planner together:

1. I purchased my membership to Mom’s Household Planner.
2. I chose all the pages that I wanted in my planner.  There are many to choose from!
3. I printed out the pages that I needed.
4. I arranged the pages the way I wanted them.  I put the monthly page first and then 4-5 weeks of weekly pages afterward.  I repeated this for all the months.  I printed the pages on the front and back and arranged them where there would be a full 2 page layout for each week.

Here you can see a Monthly Page, then the Weekly Pages (they are printed on both sides), and then the next Monthly Page.

After the Monthly and Weekly Pages were together, I added other pages that I wanted.

A Sample of Some of the Pages in My Planner

After I had my planner the way I wanted it, I took it to Staples to get it spiral bound.  (It costs around $4 to get it spiral bound with a clear front cover and a plastic black back cover.)  You can also put your planner in a binder (You can see some examples of this here).

How Much Did it Cost?

Here are the approximate costs for my planner.  This is a really close number, but not perfect because I didn’t count each and every page.  🙂

• Paper         $2.00 (24 lb weight)
• Ink              $5.00  (I buy discount ink cartridges)
• Binding     $4.00
• Tabs            $2.00

     Total          $13.00

I also bought my membership to the Mom’s Household Planner.  They are having a sale right now for $10 off (the sale ends December 16th).  So, I payed $14.95 for my membership.  But it is lifetime member ship, so I never have to pay for that again!  And the site is updated with new printables for each year.

Altogether I payed about $28.00 for the planner.  But every year after this I will only have to pay for my supplies and my planner will only cost me around $13.00!  When I was at Staples I checked out the planners.  Many of them were $35.00 or more and they were much more basic than mine.

And planning itself saves me money, time, and frustation all year!  

A planner can also help you find time and money for the things you want to do.  You can learn more about Mom’s Household Planner or sign up for membership on the Mom’s Tool Belt website.